Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Advanced Genealogical Methods course at SLIG

This is the second in a series of posts by guest authors on the courses at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. This one is by Susan Michaels, CG on the Advanced Genealogical Methodscourse. If you are interested in taking this course in January of 2013 registration will open on June 2nd and it will probably fill in the first day as it is a very popular course.

I
have always enjoyed Tom’s conference lectures, so I chose this course
for my first experience attending SLIG. He was an excellent teacher. It
was a completely different environment from his lectures. It was very
much an instructional versus lecture atmosphere. The syllabus was very
complete. I took very few notes mostly to highlight extremely points or
the references that he recommended. The syllabus has been a great
reference to refer to after returning home from the institute. It was
practically worth the price of admission alone. The course material was
densely packed. The first two days were spent mostly on the first two
modules: “Developing an Evidence Orientation” and “Developing Research
Questions and Hypotheses; Planning an Exhaustive Search.” Tom spends a
lot of time on these building block fundamental topics. By the end of
Tuesday it appears that there is no way that everything in the syllabus
can possibly be covered by the end of Friday; however, by the end of
Thursday he has caught up with the printed schedule.

After
thoroughly covering the foundations of developing an evidence
orientation to reconstruct relationships and identities, the rest of the
modules demonstrate using these techniques with various major record
types including census, probate, tax lists, and local land records. He
also discusses three “special problems” including: “Identifying Landless,
Enslaved, Peasant, and Other Impoverished Ancestors,” “Finding Immigrant
and Migrant Origins,” and “Identifying Female Ancestors.” He finishes
the week explaining how to resolve conflicting evidence and solve
genealogical problems by correlating sources, information, and evidence.
He uses real-life examples from his personal and client research to
demonstrate the techniques. As a class and in small groups, the students
use the evidence provided on slides and in the workbooks in the
syllabus to resolve these real-life problems themselves. I always learn
best what I have to figure out for myself, so this was a terrific
process to me.

Claire
Bettag taught three modules covering how to research U.S. government
records: “Archival Research,” “Federal Research: Government Documents,”
and “Federal Land Records: Analysis, Interpretation, and Correlation.”
She knew her topics inside out and was a very engaging and informative
instructor. The first homework assignment was assigned by Claire on
government documents. I learned a lot from this assignment and from all
of Claire’s lectures.

Rick
Sayre was the instructor for “Military and Pension Records Strategies:
Analysis, Interpretation, and Correlation” and “Rural and Urban Map
Strategies: Analysis, Interpretation, and Correlation.” I have listened
to Rick discuss maps before and no one knows/loves maps as much as he
does and he loves to encourage others to use more maps in their
research. I was unaware of his interest in military records but I
learned a lot from him on using military/pension records to further my
research.

I
had a terrific experience in this course and I would highly recommend
it to every researcher who aspires to performing at a professional level
and for breaking down those brick walls that all of us have developed.
This is definitely not a beginner course. There is optional homework but
not of an onerous nature. For those who may have already taken “Course
4: Advanced Methodology and Evidence Analysis” instructed by Elizabeth
Shown Mills, CG, CGL at IGHR, I recommend that you take this
course at SLIG also. Tom and Elizabeth cover a similar topic from very
different directions and teaching styles. The two courses are more
complimentary than redundant. Since I had already taken Course 4 at
IGHR, I was not sure about how much more I would learn from SLIG’s
Course 9; but I am REALLY glad that I took both courses.

This was my first attendance at SLIG, but it definitely will not be my last. I am already anxiously waiting for June 2nd so I can register for SLIG 2013. I hope I see you there.

CG
or Certified Genealogist is a service mark of the Board for
Certification of Genealogists, used under license by Board-certified
genealogists after periodic evaluation, and the board name is registered
in the US Patent & Trademark Office.

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About Me

I am a professional genealogist who focuses on genealogy education as a coordinator at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University, and at the Salt Lake Institute of
Genealogy. I served as the administrator of the ProGen
Study Program for professional genealogists for six year, and am now on the board of directors. I love learning and there is always more to study in the field of genealogy and family history.